


That Stuff Tastes Like Medicine, But I'll Take It, It'll Do

by Birdbitch



Series: Vampires [2]
Category: DCU
Genre: Alternate Universe, First Time, Gift Fic, M/M, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-07
Updated: 2016-01-07
Packaged: 2018-05-12 08:23:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5659417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Birdbitch/pseuds/Birdbitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In Metropolis, they meet people who are like them while simultaneously being nothing like them at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	That Stuff Tastes Like Medicine, But I'll Take It, It'll Do

**Author's Note:**

  * For [st00pz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/st00pz/gifts).



> A WHILE ago I promised St00pz a gift follow-up to another vampire story I wrote. This is it. It took a long time to finished, which is totally my bad. Please enjoy it. The title comes from a song by the Mountain Goats.

“Is it bad that I still worry about Slade Wilson?” It must be a few years after Bruce and Dick had taken Tim in that he overheard the conversation between them: Dick, still terrified of the man who destroyed his family and Bruce, unable to do anything to help him. 

“I don't think I ever stopped looking over my shoulder when my parents were killed,” Bruce answered, and at that moment Tim felt it imperative that he leave the hallway and head back to his own room. When he remembered the moment in a dream, he felt keenly being thirteen and thinking he knew what they were talking about and what would happen next, but in being older, he couldn't help the feeling that he knew nothing then and he still knew nothing now. Bruce and Dick were the kind of vampires who would feed from each other more often than not, sustaining themselves when they had to on people that they might draw to their home for the night and take their quick fill before sending them home thinking whatever strange things that had occurred must have been dreams. How could he have known anything about how they would nurse their wounds?

But he remembered Slade Wilson and the conversation and the dream he had about both when he ended up in Metropolis for business. Sometimes he and Bruce switched off--dying to hide the fact that you cannot costs money, and someone needed to be constantly be on the inside to ensure nobody noticed missing funds or tried to stop money flowing to the Wayne accounts. As far as anyone else knew, there had been five generations since Bruce survived the tragedy of the circus fire. In reality? Tim groaned and reached up to squeeze the curtains an inch closer to each other. Nobody really knew anything except maybe hunters like Slade Wilson, and being in Metropolis felt like being too vulnerable for his tastes. He lost his family too, in the fire. 

Tim constantly thought about it, actually. 

 

X

 

“They’re not like us,” is the first thing Dick says when he and Bruce get back from the meeting. He doesn’t seem terribly disappointed, though, even if Bruce is quiet and hangs back to advise Alfred on dinner plans. 

Tim swallows and runs his fingers along the sides of his pants, the corduroy a welcome deviation in sensation. “When you say that, do you mean--” 

“They walk in the sun,” Bruce says gruffly, and there’s a redness to his cheeks (and Dick’s too, when Tim looks for it) which indicates a recent feeding. Maybe they ate with the not-vampires in Metropolis, fed like vampires are supposed to on something rather than bloody, mostly-raw meat. 

“Then they’re not like us,” Tim says, and Dick puts a hand on his shoulder.

“There aren’t very many people like us at all, anymore. We should take what we can get.”

“They’re coming for dinner.” Bruce’s hand is suddenly heavy on the small of Dick’s back, possessive in a way that Tim isn’t sure he’s ever seen before. “There’s two of them. Alfred, you’ll make sure room service knows to provide enough?”

“Of course, sir,” the elderly butler says. 

When he shuffles out, Bruce turns his eyes back to Tim. “How did business go earlier?” 

“We have a tentative contract with Metropolis General Hospital. Our medical supplies are of higher quality and lower cost than Luthor’s, so I think we should consider it a guarantee.” Conversation lingers on business until Bruce and Dick make the decision to get changed, get more casual for dinner, and Tim takes it as an opportunity to relax. Review his notes from the meeting. Prepare for the dinner with the Kents. 

Dick comes to him first, dressed down. “I think you’ll like them,” he says, and Tim shrugs a sweater from Harvard circa 1964 over his head. 

“They don’t have to wear SPF 95 when they step outside for five minutes,” he says.

“They don’t. Apparently when the disguise gets old here, they spend a few years in Kansas.”

“Kansas.”

“Farming. The sun isn’t the only way they’re not like us.” Dick squeezes his shoulder and pulls him close. “It’s been a long time.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I think it’s good that we’re doing this. Bruce got jealous for the first time in ages.”

“Bruce? Jealous?”

“They’re not unattractive people.” Dick grins at him and stands. “I think they should be here soon. Come join us out there.”

Tim swallows hard, bites down on his bottom lip almost hard enough to break the skin. “I’m not a people person, Dick,” he says. 

“It’ll be good for you.”

He watches Dick leave, sits back on the bed and stares at the ceiling for a while before making the decision to finally leave. When he enters the living space of the penthouse, there are two strangers standing with Bruce and Dick, and they smell  _ warm _ . 

Bruce makes the introductions as quickly and painlessly as he can. “Our son, Tim,” he says, and he indicates for Tim to come closer, to stand with his family. “Tim, these are the Kents, Clark and his son, Conner.”

“Kon is fine,” Conner answers. Something about him is overwhelming--too much, too much, everything feels like too much, and when his hand leaves Clark’s to shake Kon’s, Tim wants to lean in close because he is so warm, so much warmer than humans or even werewolves, and he wonders what it is because he wants it. 

It’s there with Clark, too, but not nearly so much--though Tim wonders if that’s why Bruce got jealous over Dick. If anything, his parents seem unaffected, so he tries his best to appear the same way. 

By the time dinner actually gets up to the suite, Tim is absolutely ravenous, but the food does nothing for him. He’s never felt hungry like this before in his life, and the small talk between Clark and Bruce and Dick is killing him while he watches Kon dig into the rare steak, blood on his mouth before he wipes it away with the dark napkin provided with the meal. He can’t stop staring at the other young man, and when Kon catches his eye and winks at him, he wonders if maybe he’s not the only one caught in the feeling. 

“Tim,” he says, and his voice is low enough, caught somewhere in the back of his throat, to sound dangerous, a note that Bruce and Dick and even Clark pick up on immediately, and one that is enough to almost drag Tim out of his seat. “You’re here on business, right?”

“Yes,” he says. 

“You ever see Metropolis at night?”

“I can’t say I have.”

“Conner.” Clark’s voice is warning, and Bruce looks like he’s about to attack. 

“I mean, assuming it’s alright with everyone else, what if I showed you around? It’s a shame to be in a city and not see any of it.” 

Tim glances at Bruce and Dick before standing up. “Let me get my coat,” he says, and Kon stands up, too, goes with him towards the coat closet.

“Tim.” It’s Dick’s voice, and Tim turns to look at him. “Be back before dawn.”

“I’ll call if I’m not,” he says, and he follows Kon out of the suite and into the hotel hallway. “What are you?” he asks, and Kon shrugs his shoulders, drawing the leather of his jacket taut across them. 

“Clark was hoping you guys would know.”

“Isn’t he your father?”

“One of them. He wasn’t around for a whole lot when I was younger.” Kon sighs and stuffs his hands in his pockets. “Sorry. That whole dinner thing was getting really boring and I just needed to get out of there.”

“You just needed--” The confusion falls in waves over Tim, and he’s suddenly feeling very hurt and betrayed. “That’s not fair. That’s not funny.”

“What? You didn’t want to be there any more than I did.”  
“I wouldn’t have made you feel--” He swallows. “I wouldn’t have tricked you to get me out of it,” he finishes.

Kon is handsome and warm and smells so good--and he’s not interested like Tim thought he was. “I’ll still take you out. There’s a pretty good bar not too far away. Are you good for walking, Harvard?”

“Don’t.” They stop in the middle of the hallway, and Kon turns to look at him with a raised eyebrow. “I don’t know what your deal is, but I--”

“Come on.” Kon closes in on him, bigger and warmer and Tim can’t help the way his head tilts back, can’t help the way his neck exposes itself. “Oh. It’s like that.”

“Shut up,” Tim says, but when Kon smiles, sharklike and stunning, when he leans closer and wraps a strong arm around Tim’s waist, he tells himself he can’t help that his hands fist the soft material of the sweatshirt (emblazoned, surprisingly, with the NASA logo), can’t help it that he kisses back when Kon makes the move. When it stops, Tim feels more breathless than he has in decades. 

Kon doesn’t look unaffected. “You’re not going to see a whole lot of Metropolis in this hallway,” he says, and his eyes are focused on Tim’s neck like he wants to tear his throat out. Tim’s not sure he’d complain if it happened. “We should get out of here.”

“Yeah. Yeah, we should.” 

The walk to the bar isn’t enough to cool him down, and Kon has an arm around his waist that doesn’t help. Or maybe it does--by the time they get there, he feels like he’s had enough of Metropolis and would rather get somewhere private. By nature, Tim has always been private--and he feels like he would have been regardless of whether or not Bruce and Dick took him in after the fire. “When was the last time you fed?” Kon asks, voice low while they shuffle along the wall.

“I just ate.”

“You know what I mean.” His mouth becomes hot and insistent against Tim’s neck and Tim gets the idea. 

“We use blood donations.”

“What do you do, heat it up in a microwave?” 

He does, actually, but he doesn’t feel like sharing that information with Kon any time soon. “What’s your point?” he asks, but he’s being pulled onto the dancefloor and Kon’s hips rock against his and he has to wrap his arms around a strong neck and try to keep up. He hates places like this, if he’s being honest, but with this stranger, it doesn’t feel as bad as it could. 

“I’m saying, we could head back to my place.”

“I have a hotel room.”

“Yeah, with your terrifying Bat Dad. You think I want to fuck while he’s--” Tim pulls away, quick and sudden, and Kon’s eyebrows shoot up to his hairline. “What? I thought you wanted--”

Tim doesn’t know what he wants, not really, but it’s not a one night stand. It’s not rutting against each other in some sleazy bar, and it’s not getting drawn in by someone’s unbearable warmth only to find out that the guy’s a total asshole. 

No, he thinks. He knows what he wants. 

He wants something like what Bruce and Dick have. 

“I’m going back to my hotel,” he says. “It was nice meeting you, Conner.”

The air is much colder when Tim steps out alone. He makes it about a block before Kon catches up to him, and he hates how much nicer it feels with him by his side. “Give me a try,” he says, and Tim rolls his eyes. “Listen. I was a jerk. I just figured you’d. I don’t know.” He shrugs his shoulders. “I’m not going to say I don’t want to have sex you, but I thought the feeling was mutual, or whatever.”

Tim stands still for a moment, staring at the sidewalk and the way certain flecks in the concrete seem to sparkle from the bright lights of the city. “How far away is your apartment?” he asks.

 

X

 

Kon’s apartment isn’t too far away. “Do you live with your father?” Tim asks, and Kon shakes his head. 

“He’s closer to the Planet.” Tim sits on a dark red couch while Kon kneels in front of the entertainment center, seeking out a DVD. “Do you have any preference in movie?”

“I didn’t think that’s what we were doing.”

“Bear with me. Sometimes I’m romantic.”

“Conner.”

He looks over his shoulder. “Something up?” 

“I’ve never done this before.”

“Well, sure, you’re the kind of guy who stays in his hotel room when he visits cities--”

“No, I mean. This.” Bruce and Dick feed on each other. For Tim, it’s never been anything like that--he doesn’t think he’s even had a real feeding on anything other than blood bags since before blood banks became a thing. It’s never been like this before. He feels cold, colder than he has in a while, and he doesn’t want to think about what kind of movie they’re going to watch, or what kind of fake date they’re on. 

“Oh,” Kon says. He stands up, stalks over towards Tim and sits down on the couch next to him before nuzzling his nose against him. There’s that unbearable warmth again, the feeling of being safe, and Tim groans into it, reaches up to angle Kon for a kiss. “What about anything else?” he asks. 

“No.” Who’s there been for him? The only other people he knows of who are like him are his parents, and it’s not very often that he’s wanted anything like he wants it now. “I’m sorry. I don’t. I’m not.”

“Careful. Don’t blow a gasket.” 

“You’re just so, and I’m--not.” 

Kon’s mouth is hot against his neck, though, and Tim reaches up to cover his face, his eyes, because he knows that the blood from the steak his coloring his cheeks, knows that he’s hard, so hard just at the idea of someone else biting him, but. Kon’s hand is larger, fingers wrap easily around his wrist and pull his hand down to touch the back his neck.

“You smell good,” he says, and his neck muffles the words but they still reach Tim’s ears and he feels warm for the first time in years. He feels warm for the first time since the fire and he tightens his grip on the back of Kon’s neck.

“I don’t want this to be a one time thing,” he says, and Kon kisses the skin.

“Whoever said it had to be?” he asks. Tim thinks that he should be more critical, thinks that he should complain, call Kon a liar, but he doesn’t. He feels teeth against his neck now and he’s crying out before they even break the skin, bucks his hips against Kon’s. Pulling back, he kisses Kon’s red, red, mouth, tastes blood he didn’t know he still had, and lurches forward to press his lips against the tendons of Kon’s neck.

His teeth feel long and the blood rush into his mouth leaves his gasping, begging, as he swallows and pushes Kon up, climbs into the man’s neck. Kon’s fingers tangle in Tim’s hair and pull back, baring his throat again for another lovebite, and Tim understands why the deep red, understands that he might not be the only one but he doesn’t care, wants this too much. 

“Is it good?” Kon asks, and Tim nods his head, presses his forehead against Kon’s and kisses him again, rocking up and down against him.

“Yeah. Yeah, it’s. It’s good.” 

 

X

 

Somewhere along the line, Tim remembers to phone Dick, tells him that he’ll be staying with Kon during the day. Around noon, they wake up and rock against each other slowly, get off without biting but with fists wrapped loosely around each other. 

“I wasn’t lying,” Tim says. “I don’t do one night stands.”

“You don’t do a whole lot of anything, boy wonder,” Kon answers. He presses a kiss against Tim’s forehead. “And I wasn’t lying when I said it didn’t have to be a one time thing.”

“I’m not in Metropolis a lot.”

“I’m not in Gotham. Ever. But I’m pretty sure I can come up with an excuse to be there.” Tim watches him move, watches him get out of bed and move behind the curtains, keeping them in place so the light doesn’t fall into the room. “Think you could figure out a reason to be here?”

Tim gets out of bed too, feels warm and full and satiated. “I’m going to take a shower,” he says. Kon comes back from behind the curtain.

“Cool. There’s room for both of us.”

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked this, let me know--comments are the lifeblood of writers. Additionally, I'm over at Tumblr as Sailorbirdie.


End file.
